Setting Reboot

So I'm undergoing kind of a big reboot on one of my Dungeons and Dragons settings. Specifically, the Dragonlance setting, brainchild of my unaware mentors, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. In case you aren't familiar with this setting, here's a short summary: dragons are uber-important, the world is still largely medieval in tech level, and magic is, depending on the era, either A) restricted to priests or mages who graduate from a rigorous(and sometimes deadly) magic school, or B) literally bursting from the natural world, and therefore able to be drawn on by afore-mentioned mages, sorcerers who learn on their own to tap into the ambient power of the world, and so on. I think you get the drift.

While this setting is the one where the bulk of my older tabletop gaming experiences occurred(and thus the world where the epic-level campaign I'm running for my old buddies at home takes place), I've found numerous inherent problems with it that make it no longer suitable for the sort of game I want to run. A few of those are as follows:

• Magic follows the old Vancian "fire-and-forget" system, where a spellcaster has to have all of his spells memorized beforehand. I dislike this system to a degree that I cannot express in words.
• Magic is so very important that little else seems to matter, at times.
• Relationships between the different humanoid races are so bad at times that it's a wonder anything good actually happens.
• The War of Souls story arc, which ended Weis and Hickman's most prominent run with the series, began jumping sharks left and right. I don't believe minotaurs have any business being able to sneak up on woodsman-supreme elves.
• The gods are way, way too directly influential in the world. I don't like having Greek-like deities running around dropping mountains on the world because people don't believe in them anymore.

Now, as stated before, I consider Weis and Hickman two of my most influential mentors in the arena of fantasy writing. I owe them quite a debt, gladly so, and they remain a couple of my favorite writers of any genre. That being said, I have a certain bent that anyone who's played in one of my games has probably noticed: magic, while important in my fantasy worlds, should never be able to eclipse the awesomeness of a burning spirit. I realize that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to most people, so I'll say it another way - my gaming taste just tends too heavily towards slightly(or completely) over-the-top action, anime-ish comedy, and similar ideas for a more traditional setting like Dragonlance to contain anymore. I like the thought of a hero with a golden heart and a passionate, determined spirit being able to challenge anyone and win the day too much to stick with a setting where it's, basically, "I have magic. I win."

There are a number of obstacles to me changing the world for my game, though. Namely, the fact that all of the characters in it have long, developed stories that we all wish to see conclude. Luckily enough, none of them are so inherently tied to Dragonlance-themed elements that I can't come up with a way to swap certain elements out, but for the time being this still seems like an undertaking that's going to be very time-consuming and difficult. For now, my players will still be in Dragonlance, until these characters have seen their full stories concluded. Sigh of disappointment.

However...I'm crafty, and am always planning something. For instance: I've wanted to write stories about the characters in this campaign for quite some time, but I always had trouble deciding which era of Dragonlance we were playing in, what events were currently transpiring, etc. So I gots me' to thinkin' - I could start writing in this new setting, and maybe, just maybe, I'd get some idea of how to ease the game's transition, in the meantime.

So here I am. Working on cobbling together something resembling a coherent fantasy world that has nothing to do with Weis and Hickman's(or, at this point, Wizards of the Coast's) personal baby. Yep. Just gotta write a brand-spankin' new fantasy setting. That's all. O_O.

This is, perhaps, a slightly larger undertaking than I had originally planned. After all, one does not simply build an entire background world for a story overnight. At least, not one that feels real or interesting, anyway. The reality is that I've been at this for several weeks now, hammering here, plastering there, and I think I'm starting to see how I want the finished product to look. Here are a few changes that I'm looking at making, that'll make things more like what my friends and I want to have in a game(and, coincidentally, will make it harder for WotC to sue me, should I someday publish these stories):

• Any gods that will exist will have a subtle touch in the world, if any at all. No more immortal, all-powerful creatures mucking around with the fates of average Joes and Janes.
• Divine magic, consequently, will be somewhat mysterious. It'll still be there, but in numerous, and sometimes starkly conflicting, forms: for instance, there will be something like three orders that actively and openly practice divine magic, and at least one church that claims to wield it, but there will also be individuals roaming the world who have no connection to any sort of established religion, who still manifest divine powers.
• Arcane magic will be scaled back a bit in its relevance and focus. There'll still be fireballin' mages, however - one of my important figures in the world is just such a man, though he's somewhat retired at this point in the story, and much more of a researcher or sage.
• Elves won't be so...elvish. I'm getting a little tired of the stereotypical "holier and mighter than thou," frail elf. Similarly, the relationships between elves, dwarves, and humans won't be quite so Tolkien-ish.
• The tech level will be slightly increased - perhaps to something vaguely resembling early steampunk. So, airships, some degree of knowledge about steam power, and likely a cultural increase as well - I'm taking some inspiration from Eberron, but not enough to be a serious moocher.

Those are the big'uns, for now. Serious props go to my buddy Hoss for the divine magic ideas so far; I'm hoping the Duke comes through soon with additions of his own. I think that, once this thing gets off the ground, I'll have some awesome stuff to work with. I'm really looking forward to it.